truth, and in their honest but humble purpose of promoting Catholic interests." We never dreamed of questioning his possession of these qualities. But we have no knowledge, to this moment, who the writer is; and we had no clue whatever therefore to guide us, except his paper. Now the opinion which we ascribed to him has never been condemned in so many words: and several Catholics thoroughly loyal (we believe) in intention to the Church -hold honestly, that no doctrine was proscribed in the seven propositions except direct pantheism. How were we to guess that he is not one of their number? Even our correspondent "Vindex" (see April, 1868, p. 569), whom we know to hold very strong doctrine on the extent of the Church's infallibility and teaching authority, considers it lawful to think, that man possesses a certain "perception" of God, which is given otherwise than "through intermediate ideas." We were as far as possible from imputing to the writer before us any intentional and formal disrespect to the Church's teaching authority; though undoubtedly we understood him as upholding a tenet, which in fact no Catholic is at liberty to

embrace.

And now we hope he will not think us ungracious, if we proceed to explain the ground on which we rested our apprehension of his words. It would be a great fault, if we credited any one wantonly with a doctrine which we represent as unsound; and we think therefore that we are under an obligation, on every occasion like the present, of either apologizing and confessing ourselves to blame, or else of vindicating the objective correctness of our interpretation. We assure him that, in doing the latter, nothing can be further from our mind, than to doubt, ever so slightly, the perfect sincerity of his disavowal.

We referred, in support of our interpretation, to some words of his in p. 15. The following is the passage which we had in view :

We cannot think the contingent without thinking the necessary; we cannot think the particular without thinking the universal; we cannot think the mutable without thinking the immutable. The creature depends as completely on God in the order of thought as in the order of existence.

Now firstly, how could we understand this last sentence? It might imaginably mean no more, than that men cannot think at all, unless God preserves their power of thought. But it was quite impossible to suppose that the writer merely intended to express a proposition, which is held as quite elementary by all Theists throughout the world, and which is moreover utterly irrelevant to his whole argument. The only other interpretation which occurred to us as possible was, that men can think of no creature, except dependently on their thought of God; that the creature can no

more be thought by men without their previous thought of God, than it can exist without the previous Existence of God. This opinion is well known to have been held by many ontologists. Herr Schütz e.g., whose assault on ontologism we noticed in January 1868 (pp. 235-237), mentions it as one of the three tenets which constitute their system, that "the order of knowledge must also be the order of existence": from which they infer, he says, that "God Himself is the first object known." But if no creature can be thought until God has been thought previously, the "cognition of God" must be "direct and immediate." And this is the precise doctrine we ascribed to the Carlovian.

Secondly, take the first sentence in the above extract. It distinctly states, that men's thought of the contingent depends on their thought of the necessary. Now in the preceding page it had been laid down, that men's thought of the necessary depends on their thought of the Necessary Being. "We can have no abstract idea of necessity, which does not suppose a concrete necessary being." If therefore men's knowledge of the contingent depends on their knowledge of the necessary, and if their knowledge of the necessary depends on their knowledge of God, it did seem irresistibly to follow, that men's knowledge both of the necessary and the contingent depends on their knowledge of God. But if so, their "cognition of God" is "direct and immediate."

Thirdly, there is a sentence in p. 17 which gave further strength to the impression received from p. 15. Is not God known from His works? it has been asked. Certainly," replies the Carlovian, "in the reflex order." Now this is a well-known phrase, continually used by the condemned ontologists. When they speak of God being known from creatures, they are in the habit of adding this qualification "in the reflex order" and they do so for the sole purpose of implying, that man possesses a direct nonreflex knowledge of God, antecedently to his knowledge of creatures. Since the writer before us considers that men possess no know

* "Previous," not necessarily in order of time, but, at all events, in order of nature and causation.

+ The writer explains his own meaning in August (p. 187). He intended to say that "what S. Thomas calls the participata similitudo veritatis æternæ' is no more the creation of the human mind by abstraction or generalization, than our own existence is derived from ourselves." We think few of our readers will be surprised that we failed to elicit this sense from the sentence; though we now of course know that such was its real subjective meaning.

The Rev. Dr. Brann e.g., an American priest, in his work called "Curious Questions," thus speaks :-"The logical," he says, "should be the same as the ontological order. But in the ontological order God holds the first place.... Hence in the logical order, or order of thought, God must be first. Besides, unless we admit the immediate vision of God, we never can have an idea of God: &c. &c." (p. 118).

ledge at all of God antecedently to their knowledge of creatures, we do not understand why he should have added that very important qualification," in the reflex order,"-which could not but mislead.

We must really contend then, that we ascribed no doctrine to the writer, which is not conveyed in the legitimate objective sense of his words; though we are now well aware, that he intended no such tenet as we then supposed. It was in consequence of this misapprehension and for no other reason, that we felt bound to protest against what appeared to us "the general thesis" of a writer, with whom otherwise we had so many points of sympathy. Why we ascribed this view to him, not merely as one of his opinions but as his "general thesis," we will explain in the course of our article.

He suggests (p. 185) that possibly we are wishing "a little row in re philosophicâ." We assure him that, as it is, we are engaged in many more rows than is at all to our taste; and that the very last thing we desire is to increase their number. Our purposes, on the contrary, were most pacific. We consider empiricism to be far the most formidable error of our time. We are extremely anxious therefore to bring about a union of Catholics interested in philosophy, who shall oppose this desolating unbelief; or, in other words, who shall vindicate the certain and vital truth, that there exists, to use Dr. Meynell's words, "an à priori positive objective element of thought, distinct from the mind itself, and possessing the characters of necessity and universality." It seems to us that there are at this moment two great obstacles in the way of such union. On the one hand, those who alone are properly (we think) called ontologists, confuse this certain truth with a further doctrine, which is not only not certain truth but is condemned error; the doctrine, that God Himself is presented immediately to the human intellect as an Object of thought. On the other hand-partly by way of protest against, and reaction from, this error-some of the scholastic following (as we said in July, p. 167) put far too much in the background that very vital part of the scholastic philosophy, which dwells on necessary and universal verities. The one main end, both of our preceding and our present article, is to remove these two obstacles, and thus to forward the priceless benefit of Catholic philosophical unity. And in furtherance of this purpose, we now proceed to build on one or two principles which we advocated in July.

Both Dr. Meynell and the Carlovian-following in this respect the example of many other Catholic thinkers-use the words "psychologism" and " ontologism,' ," as expressing two different

The Carlovian indeed speaks of "psychology" and "ontology." But we think that on reflection he will admit the convenience of retaining these

schools of thought into which Catholics are divided. It seems to us, on every ground, far more suitable to do the very reverse; and to use those two words as expressing two opposite errors, against which every well-instructed Catholic is carefully on his guard. We will begin with psychologism.

F. Kleutgen (Ont., pp. 3, 4) protests against the habit, adopted by the ontologists, of giving the name "psychologists psychologists" to their Catholic opponents. This is done by the former, for the very purpose of implying, that the latter regard necessary truth as a merc product of the human mind. But no well-instructed Catholic of any school holds this latter opinion; and no well-instructed Catholic therefore should be called a psychologist. On the other hand, as the Carlovian points out (p. 15), Mr. Stuart Mill by implication calls himself a psychologist; and there is no discourtesy therefore in giving him the name.

What then is that error, which may suitably be called "psychologism"? Those, it seems to us, may suitably be called psychologists, who deny to the human mind all immediate and certain knowledge, except of its own affections and operations; those who will not admit that it possesses the power of authenticating, with infallible self-evidence, various truths, which are simply external to itself. No error can be more subversive than this of all philosophy and of all religion. "We stand face to face," eloquently and most truly says the Carlovian, "with those eternal truths. We perceive them in our reason, we feel them in our hearts, and hear their solemn voice in the inmost recesses of conscience" (p. 17). Man's knowledge of eternal truths depends, as on its foundation, on his knowledge of those "philosophical axioms" which we considered in our last number. But psychologism at all events denies to him all right of accepting those axioms as objectively certain, whether or no it admits them to be subjectively self-evident.* Psychologism then includes the two different systems, (1) of empiricism and (2) of Kantism, which we mentioned in July (p. 145). Putting aside all reference to Mill and Bain, even Kant and Mansel ascribe to man no further knowledge of axioms as possible, than merely that he is so constituted as inevitably to regard certain truths as necessary. Here is psychologism pure and simple. On the contrary man knows, not merely that he cannot help regarding these truths as necessary, but that

two words in their ordinary sense, as merely expressing two different classes of subjects, which have to be treated in every philosophical system. We shall make no further apology therefore for making this change in our quotations from his papers.

That no psychologists can consistently carry out their principle-not only we do not deny, but we most strongly affirm. It will be one principal argument which we hope to urge against them in a future article.

they are necessary. His knowledge is not merely of himself and of his own mental constitution, but of certain all-important verities entirely external to himself. Such is the doctrine of every orthodox Catholic; and it is a direct denial of psychologistic error. We are not here professing to draw out an argument against psychologism, for that is to be the theme of a future article. But it is of much importance for our present purposes, that our reader shall sufficiently understand its character and tendency; and especially that he shall see its direct antagonism to the scholastic philosophy.

Let us consider then, what would be the condition of human knowledge on the psychologistic hypothesis. And we cannot perhaps throw off better than by saying, that this hypothesis would prevent men from reasonably denying the possible truth of that famous theory, which so perplexed Descartes, concerning a mendacious creator. We will (1) exhibit the utter desolatingness of this theory; then (2) briefly criticise Descartes' attempt to refute it; and (3) point out the utter powerlessness of a psychologist, to give it even the most superficially plausible reply.

1. The hypothesis then which so exercised Descartes was this: that mankind are under the power of a malignant creator, who gives them deceptive faculties; and accordingly, that the laws of thought are fundamentally different from the laws of truth. Let us suppose for a moment, that I had no reasonable ground for confidently denying the truth of this hypothesis. What would follow on such a supposition? I fancy myself to have gone through a long and continued variety of experiences, which my memory recalls. But I have no means of knowing that I so much as existed a minute ago; and still less, that I have had that particular history which I suppose myself to remember: for I know not but that my memory is a purely delusive faculty, implanted for the very purpose of deceiving me. I have no power of knowing even such simple truths, as that two and two make four, or that every trilateral figure is triangular for how can I know that the intellectual dictates, which point to those truths, are not the inspirations of a mendacious creator? I have no means of knowing any personal facts, except my own sensations and thoughts as they exist at this moment; while as to truths or facts external to myself, I have no means of knowing for certain anything whatever about them. I know nothing I can know nothing-of my fellow-men, of God, of moral obligation.

2. How is it that Descartes professes to refute this desolating hypothesis of a mendacious creator? He bases all human certitude on knowledge of God the Holy Creator; and he considers that

*His doctrine was appropriated with great expressness, in a very able and eulogistic review of Dean Mansel in the Guardian." "We look,"